Planning the Homage to Bertalanffy

Dear colleagues

Let me inform you how the manifestation of the Homage to Karl Ludwig von
Bertalanffy during the 100th Anniversary of his Birthday. has been
planned, until September 2000
,
Being born in Vienna in 1901 (September 19th), LvB became

"...one of those strategically placed thinkers whose knowledge in many
fields permits them...to penetrate to the quick of the living reality."
[Aldous Huxley].

He advocated that we dare to broaden our loyalty from nation to globe and
urged that we become patriots of the planet, endeavoring to think and act
primarily as members of humanity, (and) begin pledging our allegiance to
humanity and to the earth on which we stand, one planet indivisible or not
planet at all. "We must begin protecting the individual and cultural
identity of others". He advocated as well a new global morality: "an ethos
which does not center on individual good and individual value alone, but on
the adaptation of mankind, as a global system, to its new environment". "We
are dealing with emergent realities; no longer with isolated groups of men,
but with a systematically interdependent global community. It is this level
of [reality] which we must keep before our eyes if we are able to inspire
large-scale action designed to assure our collective and hence our
individual survival." He argued: "Possibly the model of the world as a
great organization can help to reinforce the sense of reverence for the
living which we have almost lost in the last sanguinary decades of human
history".

" [Uncommon Sense. The Life & Thought of Bertalanffy. Mark Davidson]

Last 19th September 2000 there was a Preliminary Meeting (sponsored by the
University of Technology of Vienna) in order to examine how to organize
from 19 September 2000 to 19 September 2001 (The Bertalanffy Year for some
members of the Systems Community) the 100th Anniversary of his Birthday

In this Meeting the participants agree not only to celebrate his birthday
but to examine how the Systems Thinking that has been evolving during the
last three decades, since Bertalanffy produced a General Systems Theory,
have contributed to solve the urgent problems of humankind.

This celebration comprises two phases:

A CONVERSAZIONE based on exchange of views, through e-mail (*), about
Bertalanffian thoughts and their development at present

A CONFERENCE that will be held November 1 - 4, 2001 in Vienna as a Forum
for presentation of papers, lectures, speeches, posters and also an Open
Space for self-organized debates and discussions

Best wishes

elohimjl
______________________

(*) Everybody is invited to examine critically the Bertalanffy's contributions
(http://bertalanffy.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/)

and to express his/her views about the proper ways of making more useful,
for the systems community, to recognize the Bertalanffian achievements,
sugestions and warnings. An exchange of points of view may take place
through e-mail sending the message:
subscribe bertalanffy-list
to: lists@igw.tuwien.ac.at

A confirmation will be sent to every subscriber by this "bertalanffy-list"
which means that he/she will receive and be able to send messages.
Received on Tue Oct 17 10:16:38 2000